True Colors at the Guggenheim

guggbuff.jpg

Newsday ran a great feature yesterday about the current agonizing over what color to paint the Guggenheim, once they finally get the scaffolding off the net-shrouded hulk. (The New York museum is now undergoing much needed restoration.) Here's your chance to vote on which Benjamin Moore color you prefer: the old, familiar London Fog or the possible new choice, Powell Buff (said to have been the hue originally chosen by Frank Lloyd Wright).

In the Newsday article accompanying the swatches, Karla Schuster reports:

[New York City's] Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must approve changes to the museum's exterior, may settle the question as early as this week.

Four years ago, a similar quandary faced the restorers of the structure that is arguably Frank Lloyd Wright's most iconic work, Fallingwater in Mill Run, PA. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal at that time, frequent repainting had made it "difficult to uncover the exterior's original color and texture." Pamela Jerome of the New York firm, Wank Adams Slavin Associates, whom I met while she was analyzing paint samples onsite at Fallingwater, is also among those overseeing the Guggenheim project.

Apparently, the exterior painting of Fallingwater was finally being done just this past summer: The Fallingwater website (which includes a photo of painting-in-progress) tells us:

Although it appears to be noticeably darker than the color many have come to associate with the structure, the paint actually more closely represents the original color Frank Lloyd Wright selected in 1936.

Actually, Wright had originally wanted to swathe the house in gold leaf, but finally settled for the color of "sere leaves"---an apricot-tinged ochre.

That's a better description of Powell Buff than "yellow," which is how Newsday describes the color being considered for the restored museum. Trouble is, you can't really assess that color from the digital image in Newsday's poll. It's really much warmer.

True Wright buffs who want to view Powell Buff should head over to the local Benjamin Moore emporium and pick up the color card for HC-35. Better yet, go to the Guggenheim, where, as seen in the video accompanying the Newsday article, adjacent applications of the familiar color and the possible replacement color can be viewed firsthand.

Actually, if you look at the above photo of the Guggenheim, from the museum's own website, it already appears to be in the Buff.

October 14, 2007 10:45 PM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

Highlights from my writings and broadcasts: 


MY BOOK
The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf)

IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NY TIMES OP-EDS:
For Sale: Our Permanent Collection (museum deaccessions)
Fashion Victim (Chanel at the Met)
Destroying the Museum to Save It (Barnes Foundation)
Reassembling Sundered Antiquities (Parthenon marbles)

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Los Angeles' New Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia's New Perelman Building
The Walton Effect: Art World Is Roiled by Wal-Mart Heiress

Tricks of the Auction Trade

The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress

Upside Down and Backward, Yet Tame (Boston ICA)
Edith Wharton's Library Is Now an Open Book
Extreme Makeover: Smithsonian Edition (American Art and Portrait Gallery renovation)
This Museum's Expansion is Simply Effective (Minneapolis Institute)
Truth in Booty: Coming--and Staying--Clean (antiquities controversies)
A Betrayal of Trust (NY Public Library's art sales)
The Lost Museum (MoMA's art sales)
Endangered Species (single-collector jewel-box museums)
Money in Motion (the Guggenheim's finances)
The Fine Art of Genocide? (appraisals of Hitler's art)

LA TIMES OP-EDS:
Make Art Loans, Not War
Museums Can't Compete (public collecting endangered)

ART IN AMERICA:
Refreshing the Smithsonian (the renovated SAAM and NPG)
The Atrium That Ate the Morgan (Renzo Piano's addition)
Hot Pots and Potshots (controversies over museum antiquities)
Musings on Museums (book review of "Whose Muse?")

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO:
Criticism of AAM's Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO:
Guggenheim Director Steps Down
Philippe de Montebello's Retirement
Fall '07 Art Auctions
Metropolitan Museum's "Age of Rembrandt" Show
Commentary on the Art Market
Tour of Sculpture Gardens, with Slideshow
Audio Commentary on the Met's New Greek and Roman Galleries
Glenn Lowry's Unorthodox Compensation Package
Commentary on the Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Museums' Purchase and Sale of Eakins' Works (about one-third of the way into the program)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' sale of Eakins' "The Cello Player"

BBC-TV:
Impressionist/Modern Auction at Sotheby's

more of me elsewhere

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on October 14, 2007 10:45 PM.

Fisk Collection-Sharing Agreement: Walton's Crystal Bridges Is First Among "Equals " was the previous entry in this blog.

De Montebello Blasts Louvre Abu Dhabi is the next entry in this blog.

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